Masculinity in flux? Male managers navigating between work and family

ABSTRACT

The article sheds light on male managers’ experience as fathers in a post-Soviet context in Lithuania. This empirical study of 12 male managers’ experiences of work-family integration (WFI), their ways of coping with negative experiences, and the role of organizations in reducing conflict and enriching WFI, reveal the emergence of a new paternal identity: fathers who perceive their role as caregivers but for whom this is still subordinate to the dominant role of the breadwinner. Relying on their wife is a man’s dominant coping strategy. Organizations are perceived as family unfriendly. The managerial implications of the need for organizational support are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Equality
• fatherhood
• gender
• Lithuania
• male managers
• masculinity
• post-Soviet context
• work-family integration

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the program Equality in Society (Weall No. 292 883) by strategic research funding of the Academy of Finland and the Research Council of Lithuania, project No. [SMP14-26/SMP14-063].

Notes on contributors

Raminta Pučėtaitė

Raminta Pučėtaitė is Associate Professor and Principal Researcher of Public Governance group at Kaunas University of Technology Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities in Lithuania and Adjunct Professor of Management, Organizational Ethics and Human Resource Management at Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, Finland. Her research focuses on ethical issues in human resource management, research and academic ethics, values management and organizational innovativeness in a post-soviet context. She has published in national and international volumes, including Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics: a European Review, Baltic Journal of Management and two monographs on the impact of organizational ethics on sustainable innovations and issues of research and academic ethics in Lithuania (2015).

Anna-Maija Lämsä

Anna-Maija Lämsä is Professor of Human Resource Management at Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, Finland. Her main research interests are ethical approaches to management, leadership and organizations, equality and diversity in organizational life, gender and managerial careers, and women’s leadership and management development. She researches these topics in different socio-cultural contexts. Her work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Business Ethics; Gender, Work and Organization; International Journal of Human Resource Management; Scandinavian Journal of Management; Business Ethics: A European Review; Baltic Journal of Management; Gender in Management: An International Journal; International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management and Leadership & Organization Development Journal. She is currently co-director and principal investigator in the programme Equality in Society (Weall No. 292 883, weallfinland.fi) financed by strategic research funding of the Academy of Finland.

Marija Norvaišaitė

Marija Norvaišaitė holds a Master of Science degree from the Health and Social Psychology programme from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Currently she works at the Association of Local Authorities in Lithuania as a gender equality expert facilitating gender equality on a municipal level. She is also a women’s rights activist and a coauthor of the first educational domestic violence prevention comic-book in Lithuania.